Prison recall shake-up will free some domestic abusers, ministers admit

Source says ‘many but not all’ abusers and sexual offenders will be excluded from measure in England and Wales

Ministers have admitted that some domestic abusers and sexual abusers will be released under new plans to free up spaces in prisons in England and Wales, despite a denial from another government minister.

Under emergency measures announced by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, some criminals serving sentences of between one and four years who breach their licence conditions will be returned to custody for only a fixed 28-day period.

Continue reading...

Deaths prompt MPs to call for better support for vulnerable benefit claimants

Commons committee recommends independent scrutiny of failures and legal duty to safeguard those at most risk

A cross-party committee of MPs has called for greater protections for vulnerable benefit claimants after hundreds of cases of deaths and serious harms linked to safeguarding failures by welfare officials.

The work and pensions select committee said many of these cases, which include instances where claimants took their own lives, could have been prevented had the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) discharged its responsibilities effectively.

Continue reading...

London dominates England’s social mobility league with top 20 places

Sutton Trust ‘opportunity index’ measured factors such as children on free school meals passing key GCSEs

The top 20 constituencies with the best social mobility in England are all in London, according to research from a leading education charity that underscores the stark regional divide in children’s life chances.

In a report published on Thursday, the Sutton Trust has put together an “opportunity index” by analysing six measures of mobility. These include the share of children on free school meals who achieve passes in GCSE maths and English; who complete a degree by age 22; and who make it into the top 20% of earners by age 28.

Continue reading...

RFK Jr orders mifepristone review as anti-abortion groups push for ban

Health secretary cites ‘new data’ that emerged from flawed study conservatives are using to pressure US government

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Wednesday that he had directed the FDA to review the regulations around the abortion pill mifepristone.

The review, he said, was necessary due to “new data” – data that emerged from a flawed analysis that top US anti-abortion groups are now using to pressure the Trump administration to reimpose restrictions on the abortion pill, if not pull it from the market entirely.

Continue reading...

Prisoners to earn freedom after serving third of sentence under new plans

Offenders in England and Wales to have sentences cut for good behaviour and completion of work, training or education tasks

Prisoners will be able to earn their freedom after serving a third of their sentences under new minimum and maximum sentence plans released by the government to tackle the overcrowding in jails.

Offenders in England and Wales will be able to earn early release if they complete work, training or education assignments and demonstrate good behaviour.

Continue reading...

Give terminally ill people choice in how they die, MSP urges Scottish parliament

Liam McArthur opens debate on assisted dying, saying too many face ‘horrendous choices and bad deaths’

Scottish politicians have been urged to show terminally ill people compassion and choice in how they die as they began to debate a new law to permit assisted dying.

Liam McArthur, a Scottish Liberal Democrat MP, said too many dying people faced “horrendous choices and bad deaths”, including unregulated suicides or prolonged trauma because they were denied the right to an assisted death.

Continue reading...

Liz Kendall to overhaul DWP’s assessment for disability benefits

Work and pensions secretary calls for groups to engage as she scraps capability assessment and overhauls Pip application

Liz Kendall is to begin an overhaul of the disability benefit assessment process long decried by campaigners as cruel, calling on groups to engage with the changes amid criticism of the government’s forthcoming welfare cuts.

The work and pensions secretary said on Monday she was beginning the process of abolishing the work capability assessment and overhauling the process to apply for the personal independence payment (Pip) – which can be paid to those in or out of work – to form a single assessment process.

Continue reading...

UK food shops report ‘massive’ rise in pensioner shoplifting

Kingdom Services boss says retailers seeing ‘different sort of shoplifter’ with more theft by people ‘who just can’t afford food’

Food retailers have seen a “massive” increase in pensioner shoplifters over the last year, according to a leading store security firm, amid the rising cost of living.

John Nussbaum, director of service for retail at Kingdom Services Group, has said his staff were seeing a “different sort of shoplifter now” as the cost of living “pushes people to something they’ve never done before”.

Continue reading...

NHS nurses could go on strike in pursuit of 25% pay rise, union boss warns

Exclusive: RCN’s Nicola Ranger says nurses could ‘bare our teeth’ as they seek restoration of lost earnings

Nurses deserve a 25% pay rise and may go on strike again unless ministers dramatically improve their “completely unacceptable” 2.8% offer to NHS staff, the profession’s leader has said.

Prof Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said nurses wanted full restoration of lost earnings and could “bare our teeth” in pursuit of that goal.

Continue reading...

Giving weight loss jabs could bolster UK economy by £4.5bn a year, study says

Providing semaglutide for all those eligible may bring productivity gains as people are able to work more

Giving weight loss jabs to everyone eligible for them could boost the UK economy by £4.5bn, according to research.

Worldwide, about 3.8 billion people over 25 and just under 750 million children and young people are forecast to be overweight or obese by 2050. In England, 26.5% of adults are obese, while across the UK 4.6 million are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Continue reading...

Aid groups voice alarm as US pushes Israeli plan for Gaza assistance

Groups say plan to resume limited humanitarian assistance under strict Israeli rules ‘risks enabling war crimes’

Aid groups have voiced alarm at US moves to pressure them into accepting an Israeli proposal to resume limited humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged territory under strictly controlled conditions.

The Trump administration has attempted to strong-arm international agencies – including the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) – into accepting Israel’s stringent rules for resuming deliveries, according to sources familiar with the discussions and news reports.

Continue reading...

Trump’s aid cuts blamed as food rations stopped for a million refugees in Uganda

UN World Food Programme says $50m is urgently needed amid fears that Uganda may now begin forced repatriations

Food rations for a million people in Uganda have been cut off completely this week amid a funding crisis at the United Nations World Food Programme, raising fears that refugees will now be pushed back into countries at war.

The WFP in Uganda warned two weeks ago that $50m (£37m) was urgently needed to help refugees and asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Sudan.

Continue reading...

No 10 ‘completely tone deaf’ on harm caused by winter fuel cut, critics say

Polling finds two-thirds of voters would back a rethink on the policy and would not see it as a sign of weakness

Downing Street has been accused of being “completely tone deaf” over the damage wreaked by winter fuel cuts as new polling suggested two-thirds of voters would back a rethink on the policy.

Senior Labour ministers have privately warned the policy is an electoral disaster while Eluned Morgan, the Welsh first minister, said she was “losing patience” with UK Labour as she urged the government to think again.

Continue reading...

Prisons minister vows to end ‘toxic’ cover-up culture in England and Wales

James Timpson says he will fight ‘normalised’ sexual harassment, bullying and racism within prison service

Sexual harassment, racism and bullying have become “normalised” in jails and probation offices across England and Wales, the prisons minister has warned, as he announced a plan to overhaul a “toxic culture of cover-up” among senior staff.

James Timpson said one in eight of HM Prison and Probation Service’s (HMPPS) 65,000 staff say they have been bullied. Sexual assaults on female staff have led to arrests while black and Asian staff have faced repeated racist comments amid a “vacuum of pastoral care”.

Continue reading...

Transgender people’s lives at risk of being made ‘unliveable’, says Nicola Sturgeon

Former Scottish first minister expresses concern about interim advice from EHRC

The lives of transgender people in the UK are at risk of being made “unliveable”, Nicola Sturgeon has said in her first public comments about the supreme court ruling on the legal definition of a woman, which was prompted by legislation she oversaw in the Scottish parliament.

The UK supreme court ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act referred only to a biological woman and to biological sex. This was the conclusion of a long-running court action by the gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland, who objected to a law passed at Holyrood aimed at improving women’s representation on public boards being extended to transgender women.

Continue reading...

Tuesday briefing: The levers Labour might pull to counter a growing threat from Reform

In today’s newsletter: Can a partial U-turn on the winter fuel allowance help the party set a new agenda – and keep support for Nigel Farage at bay?

Good morning. After Reform UK’s resounding success in last week’s local elections, Keir Starmer has faced relentless questions over how Labour will change tack to deal with the problem. Now, we may have the beginning of an answer.

On the front page of today’s Guardian, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report that Downing Street is seriously rethinking the cuts to the winter fuel payment – the policy that above all others summarised Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s shaky start to life in government. While a full reversal is not on the cards, No 10 sources say that the £11,500 threshold over which pensioners are no longer eligible for the allowance could be increased in the autumn.

Israel-Gaza war | Israel is to expand its military operations in Gaza in the coming weeks, with the aim of “conquering” and establishing a “sustained presence” in the Palestinian territory, Israeli officials have said.

Film | Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on movies made outside the US could wipe out the UK film industry, ministers have been warned, as they came under immediate pressure to prioritise the issue in trade talks with the White House.

Charities | Macmillan Cancer Support is to scrap its £14m-a-year specialist advice service, which helps tens of thousands of people every year, in what has been described as a betrayal of vulnerable patients. With the charity’s income falling behind its expenditure, it said that the service was no longer sustainable.

Wildfires | After the warmest start to May on record, a wildfire has destroyed about 5,000 hectares (12,500 acres) of moorland on Dartmoor in Devon. Emergency services were called to the blaze at about 2.25pm on Sunday, and firefighters spent almost 24 hours at the scene before it was extinguished on Monday.

VE Day | The UK marked the 80th anniversary of VE Day with military pomp before large crowds who had gathered in central London. The royal family and war veterans were among the attendees at a 1,300-strong military procession while street parties were held around the UK.

Continue reading...

Irish camogie players don shorts in protest against skorts diktat

Players have had enough of rule 6(b) of the sport’s code, which requres a ‘skirt/skort/divided skirt’

They are called skorts – a portmanteau of shorts and skirts – and the Irish camogie players who are obliged to wear them have had enough.

Players from Dublin and Kilkenny instead wore forbidden shorts before a provincial game on Saturday, in a coordinated protest that has won support from politicians and commentators who say the dress rules for the female-only sport are archaic.

Continue reading...

MPs warn social care needs substantial investment to fix ‘broken’ system

Cross-party group’s report emphasises risk of failure after finding 3.5 million people not getting care they need

A cross-party group of MPs has warned attempts to reform adult social care are doomed to fail unless ministers accept major investment is needed to overhaul a “broken” system that was failing millions of people.

Reform of social care was typically seen by governments as a “burden” on the taxpayer, and a “drain on resources” rather than a positive boost to people’s lives, the NHS and the economy, said the health and social care select committee.

Continue reading...

Badenoch says more children, not immigration, will help with ageing population

Conservative leader’s remarks to BBC suggest she may develop policies that encourage women to have more children

People should be having more children rather than the UK relying on immigration to deal with an ageing population, Kemi Badenoch has suggested.

The Conservative leader said the UK needed to answer the question of how we “make sure we can deal with [an] ageing society, people not having enough children”.

Continue reading...

NHS England aims for faster cancer treatment with new data tool

Cancer 360 will help collate patient information from spreadsheets, emails and records into single digital system

Millions of cancer patients have been promised faster diagnosis and treatment, with the rollout of a new technology across the NHS in England.

The tool, called Cancer 360, is designed to bring cancer patients’ data into one central system in order that doctors and nurses can prioritise those most in need and see them more quickly.

Continue reading...